Volume 21, No.1

Fall 2006

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  • The Tougher Standards Fad Hits Home

    Invoking “accountability” and “competitiveness” to justify homework

    By Alfie Kohn

    In the 1830s, Dr. [Pierre-Charles Alexandre] Louis studied the effect of bloodletting, or bleeding — the standard treatment of the time — on pneumonia.The data showed that bleeding didn’t work…but […]

  • Educational Land Grab

    By the editors of Rethinking Schools

    For predatory disaster capitalists

  • Dismantling a Community

    In Katrina’s wake, a baffling array of school systems has been created. A timeline compiled by Leigh Dingerson, the Center for Community Change

    By Leigh Dingerson

    A timeline compiled by Leigh Dingerson, the Center for Community Change

  • Voices from the Big Uneasy

    The following articles are from participants in the Students at the Center (SAC) program, which encourages current and former New Orleans students and teachers to write about their lives, in […]

  • Hurricane Katrina

    Reading injustice, celebrating solidarity

    By Linda Christensen

    When Hurricane Katrina exploded across the South, tearing up levees, drowning people who couldn’t afford to escape her wrath, and exposing the way the U. S. government treats the poor, […]

  • Solidarity Not Charity

    An interview with Shakoor Aljuwani of the Common Ground Collective

    By Larry Miller

    Shakoor Aljuwani is the director of co-op development for the Common Ground Collective, a local, community-initiated organization offering support to New Orleans communities that have been historically neglected and underserved. […]

  • It Is About All of Us

    A union leader speaks out against the injustice in New Orleans

    By Brenda Mitchell

    Excerpts from a speech by the president of United Teachers of New Orleans.

  • Into the Flood and Out Again

    A year in the life of a New Orleans schoolteacher

    By LauraElizabeth Adelman-Cannon

    It was Wednesday, and the staff started to trickle into my classroom at New Orleans Charter Middle School. We were in the process of rearranging the tables for our weekly […]

  • Exploding the Privatization Myth

    Charter and private schools are no better than public schools and sometimes worse

    By Barbara Miner

    A time-honored way to bury embarrassing news is to quietly release the information on a Friday afternoon in mid-summer when reporters are on long-awaited vacations or wishing they were. It […]

  • Socrates, Plato, Eric and Guys Like Me

    Remembering Eric Rofes (1954~2006)

    By Jeff Sapp

    Remembering educator and activist Eric Rofes (1954~2006).

  • Overhauling NCLB

    It’s time to mobilize for an education law that actually improves schools

    By Monty Neill

    The federal law that is wreaking havoc on educational quality across the nation, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), is due for reauthorization by Congress in 2007. While many observers believe […]

  • Deepening Democracy

    How one school’s fairness committee offers an alternative to “discipline”

    By Maria Hantzopoulos

    On any given day at Humanities Prep, a small public high school in Manhattan, it is not uncommon to see the hallways teeming with students long after school hours. While […]

  • Fear of History

    Florida’s new law undermines critical thinking

    By Robert Jensen

    One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for certainty and control over knowledge. By that standard, the members of the […]

  • Bringing Globalization Home

    A high school teacher helps immigrant students draw on their own expertise

    By Jody Sokolower

    “Globalization is complicated,” I admitted to my 12th-grade economics class, all immigrants, all English language learners. “But migration is a key aspect of globalization, and every single one of you […]

  • Rethinking School Readiness

    An entire community comes together to discuss how to make schools work for children

    By Debra R. Sullivan

    It takes a village to raise a child, but what does it take to create a village that prepares all children to enter our school systems? Members of organizations in […]

  • Rethinking Teacher Unions

    A lot has changed in the 20 years since Rethinking Schools was born

    By Bob Peterson

    RS has always pushed unions to transform schools, and themselves.

  • Resources 21.1

    By Bill Bigelow and Deborah Menkart

    Check out these valuable resources, reviewed by Rethinking Schools editors and Teaching for Change colleagues.

  • Reviews 21.1

    By Wayne Au

    Books Hip-Hop Comes of Age Can’t Stop Won’t Stop:A History of the Hip Hop GenerationBy Jeff Chang(St. Martin’s Press, 2005)546 pp. $27.95 Angry Black White Boy,Or the Miscegenation of Macon […]

  • Help

    Josh Langworthy, a junior at Grant High School in Portland, Oregon, wrote the following essay about his “every day hero” during our Katrina unit. In addition to paying tribute to a woman who deserves it, Josh’s story also provides lessons for teachers. Who are the students in our classrooms? What are their stories? As much as NCLB would like to turn students into test scores, they arrive with a history that might help us teach them — and reach them — more effectively.

  • To: My City

    By Keva Carr

    All my life I lived in New Orleans. Now my memories are all washed away, floating with the dead bodies that couldn’t ride out Katrina. Then came [Hurricane] Rita saying, […]

  • Honoring Community

    By Ashley Jones

    The following articles are from participants in the Students at the Center (SAC) program

  • Does Anybody Know?

    By Katrena Jackson-Ndang

    On Saturday, July 15, 2006, at about 1:00 p.m., dark clouds gathered and lightning and thunderbolts filled the New Orleans sky. One hour later the sky opened and dropped buckets […]

  • Getting School Ready

    My Social and Emotional Skills I need to feel excited and comfortable about starting kindergarten. I need to know what kindergarten will be like. I need to feel good about […]

  • Good Stuff 21.1

    By Herbert Kohl

    Why Monkeys Live in Trees and Other Stories from BeninBy Raouf Mama(Curbstone Press, 2006)90 pp. $10.36 (paperback) Holding Values: What We Meanby Progressive EducationEdited by Brenda S. Engel and Anne […]

  • Immigration Story

    Life in my home country was very good because everyone lived nearby and I could go to anyone’s house to see my cousins and my friends. We had a big […]